MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

FBI tips Paraguay of possible school massacre copycat

Paraguayan Police Commissioner Diosnel Alarcón said the suspect behind these threats had been identified

The United States Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) has warned Paraguayan Police of a local possible encore of the recent massacre at a Texas primary school in which 21 people were killed.

A Paraguayan teenager was supportive on Instagram of what the 18-year-old Salvador Ramos did earlier this week at a school in Uvalde, Texas, and said he would do the same in the South American country.

Paraguayan Police Commissioner Diosnel Alarcón said the suspect behind these threats had been identified and that his parents had already been summoned. A psychological team is working on the case, while the minor was left in the care of his parents, Alarcón also pointed out.

The police chief also said these alerts come constantly when social networks detect behaviors of people who might want to attempt against their lives or those of others around them.

“The news received was the alert of a punishable act in a school”, he expressed. No further details on the suspect were released in order to preserve his identity, as per article 29 of the Paraguayan Childhood Code, which bans the publication of data that makes it possible to identify minors as victims or alleged perpetrators of punishable acts.

In this week's Texas massacre, Ramos got into a vehicle and drove to the vicinity of Robb Elementary School, where he was involved in a traffic accident. He had just shot his grandmother in the face back at home. On his way on foot to the school, Ramos shot at two people who were in a funeral home across the street, without injuring them. Then the school door was unlocked for reasons still under investigation. The perpetrator later fired into a classroom full of children, killing 19 of them and two teachers. It took law enforcement officers over an hour to enter the school and eventually gun down Ramos, whose motives are still under investigation. He had no known criminal history or mental illness.